The nascent ultrawideband (UWB) technology will receive a boost this week at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, where Intel, Texas Instruments, and another member of the Multiband-OFDM Alliance (MBOA) plan a demonstration of the technology Wednesday, according to Intel spokeswoman Kari Skoog.

The three companies will show off a USB as well as an IEEE 1394 platform adaptation layer running on top of the UWB hardware, according to sources, who added that a third layer optimized for quality-of-service (QOS) multimedia IP traffic would also be designed in. Intel’s Skoog confirmed the USB and IEEE 1394 demonstration, but said she was not aware of a QOS specification. She denied that the UWB demo will use Intel silicon, however, as other reports have indicated.

But while the demonstration is sure to boost interest in the nascent UWB technology, Motorola and the opposing MBOA consortium sit at loggerheads, unable to vote the standard into final approval. Later this month, however, executives at Motorola Inc. plan to extend an olive branch to Intel and the other members of the rival specification, in the form of a compromise common signaling protocol that would bridge the competing specifications.

Analysts say consumers will focus on the wireless versions of USB and IEEE 1394 devices, although the standards work behind the scenes is just as important.

“USB has always been the focus,” said Martin Reynolds, a vice-president at Gartner Inc., San Jose, who said he suspected the two sides would hammer out a compromise. “And I don’t think we’ll really care about the underlying protocol.”

Ultrawideband is actually a subset of the High Rate Task Group for Wireless Personal Area Networks, known as the IEEE 802.15.3 specification. IEEE 802.15.3 devices will transfer data at up to 55 Mbits/s across the 2.4-GHz spectrum band, the same band used by Bluetooth 1.1 devices as well as 802.11b radios.

To increase the bandwidth available for multimedia devices and try to eliminate potential sources of interference, a special 802.15.3a subgroup was formed to design an alternate physical-layer chip (PHY) to transfer data at roughly 480-Mbits/sec across a distance of about 1 meter, or 110-Mbits/s at 10 meters. UWB chips use a range of spectra to transfer data, prompting the name “ultrawideband”.

To date, however, the development of the 802.15.3a standard has been halted by an impasse between the MBOA and a rival group, led by Motorola Inc. and its UWB subsidiary, XtremeSpectrum. Since last fall, the MBOA’s proposal has consistently garnered about 60 percent of the votes, but fallen short of the 75 percent requirement for a proposal to pass.

Motorola has balked because of the interference generated by the MBOA solution, according to John Barr, director of standards realization for Motorola Corp.’s corporate office in Schaumberg, Ill. UWB spills over to unlicensed bands, generating electromagnetic interference that could affect radar and government radios, he said. Instead, Motorola’s dual-band solution uses a signal that looks like Gaussian or “white” noise, which theoretically makes it more difficult for a receiver to distinguish the signal but is less disruptive. However, the additional “noise” generated is equivalent to the EMI radiation produced by a PC, Barr said.

Intel’s Skoog said that, so far, Motorola’s arguments haven’t been objectively proven. To prove the point, both camps said in late January that they will work with independent testing agency ITS Labs in Boulder, Colo., to determine whether the MBOA solution violates Federal Communication Commission guidelines.

“But it may take six to nine months to complete (the tests), and come up with measurements to settle it once and for all,” Barr said. “The FCC will determine which is the right modulation technique But we don’t want to wait that long to write the standard.”

The compromise

In the interim, Motorola plans to propose a common signaling protocol that would operate at the PHY level. If a MBOA radio sensed a radio designed by Motorola, the common signaling protocol would dial back the speed to perhaps 20 Mbits per second at a distance of 50 feet, Barr said, sacrificing speed for compatibility.

A common protocol would be appropriate for a standard, as a standard itself promotes interoperability, Barr said. “A standard doesn’t define a market; it helps it to develop,” he said.

Intel’s Skoog said that she was not aware of a common signaling protocol proposal. Motorola will float the common signaling protocol at the ad hoc IEEE meeting in San Diego on Feb. 23, Barr said, and the company expects interest from Panasonic/Matsushita, Sharp, Sony, and other companies “that understand radios,” he said.

When all is said and done, USB and other protocols running on top of UWB will provide another means for consumers to pipe data from device to device. USB-over-UWB would seem to crimp USB On-The-Go, a wireless version of USB that uses the USB 1.2 extensions to transfer data from device to device without the need for a host PC. Gartner’s Reynolds disagreed.

“It’s not going to replace USB On-The-Go,” he said. “It’s more of a threat to Bluetooth, which has struggled with protocols and security.”

In related UWB news, Intel is also expected to announce this week that it will join the WiMedia Alliance, an industry group composed of companies dedicated to interoperability among IEEE 802.15.3 products.

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